


The Castaway

by WarriorEowyn



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:55:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25248001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WarriorEowyn/pseuds/WarriorEowyn
Summary: Legloas and Gimli, preparing for the voyage to the Undying Lands, meet an unexpected stranger.
Relationships: Gimli (Son of Glóin) & Legolas Greenleaf
Comments: 10
Kudos: 68





	The Castaway

**Author's Note:**

> Reviews are very appreciated!

The small grey boat sat completed on the shoreline, and the last of the supplies were being packed for the next morning’s expected voyage, when Legolas and Gimli looked up from their preparations to see a stranger on the beach. From his deeply-lined face and greying hair, Gimli might at first glance have thought him a Man of Gondor, were it not for the keenness of the eyes. 

Legolas’ hands went to his bow, and before Gimli could speak he had already notched an arrow and moved to stand between the stranger and the boat.

“Show your hands.”

  
The stranger held his hands out, palm up, and the right hand was curled and blackened to to second knuckle of the fingers, as though he had grasped a piece of metal new from the forge.

  
“Sit.”

  
The stranger sat in the sand, hands still held up in front of him.

  
Gimli at last found his voice. “Legolas, what are you doing? He is unarmed, he has offered us no threat, the Men of Minas Tirith assured us there were no evil things at the Mouths of Anduin - ”

  
“Evidently, the Men of Minas Tirith were mistaken.” Gimli had never heard such hate in Legolas’ voice, not even for Saruman or servants of the Enemy. “I will explain. For the present, believe me when I say that this is such a threat as we have not faced since the War, and seldom during it. Now -“ returning his attention to the stranger - “how and why are you here, and why now, and for what purpose?”

The stranger spoke slowly and softly, his eyes fixed on the sand.

  
“A fortnight ago I was far to the south of here. In a dream, I saw the Mouths of Anduin, and a small grey boat, and two companions at a distance. I thought it only a dream, but it returned in the same form four nights more, and on the morn of the fifth day I saw a great flock of gulls flying north. I thought it might be a sign, though I have had none such since we left Valinor, and I came north to meet it. And here I find you. Am I right in thinking,” - he paused - “that you mean to leave these shores?”

  
“Yes.”

  
“Then I have come to ask - to beg - for you to take me with you.”

*****

Legolas had sent the stranger a little ways up the beach, so that the camp lay between him and the ship, before he turned to talk with Gimli.

  
“How much do you remember of the tales of the Elder Days told at Rivendell? Or at Erebor?”

  
“I know the tales of Beren and Lúthien and the Great Jewel, of Túrin the Doomed, of Nargothrond and Gondolin and the war against the Dark Enemy.” He also knew of the war of Doriath and Tumunzahar, but he suspected that Erebor and the Forest of Greenleaves had differing accounts.

  
“And of Fëanor?”

  
“The maker of the Jewels. His grandson was the Ring-maker deceived by Sauron, and a great friend of Khazad-dûm and of Dúrin the Deathless. His sign was on the doors of Khazad-dûm.”

  
Legolas narrowed his lips. “Yes. That is what many would remember, in these days. Some tales are too dark to tell lightly to outsiders, and too ill to tell for pleasure. The Elves remember, but few others care to, beyond the lore-masters. For our times are happier, at least in that we know our enemies from our friends.

  
“When the Dark Enemy slew the Lights that were before the Sun and Moon, and stole the Great Jewels, Fëanor and his sons swore to reclaim the Jewels and to slay any that possessed them, or else be doomed to Darkness Everlasting. To leave the Blessed Realm swiftly, they slew the greater part of my kin that lived there and stole their ships. In the long years when the Dark Enemy held the jewels, they never attacked him in his fortress, but when Beren and Lúthien freed the Jewel, and their son ruled as King of Doriath - ” Legolas paused and threw a hard look at the stranger. “They destroyed Doriath and slaughtered its people. They killed the King and Queen and their young sons, and when the King’s daughter escaped, they slew near all that remained of her people. But she was saved by the Lord of the Seas, and with her husband Eärendil the Mariner brought the Jewel into the West, and sought and received the aid of the Powers against the Enemy.”

  
“And what has this to do with our visitor?”

  
“He is Maglor, the last son of Fëanor. For his crimes he is barred from returning to the Blessed Realm; but he appears to be attempting it.”

  
“He seemed to think he had a sign from the Powers that it might be permitted.”

  
“The Fëanorians are liars, thieves, and murderers all. I trust him no more than I would an orc. While he is here, we keep a watch through the night. Keep an eye on him - and keep an eye on the boat!”  
*****

Legolas took the first watch, and woke Gimli at three in the morning. Maglor did not appear to have moved all night, nor was he sleeping; he remained seated silently, gazing out to sea. After an hour of boredom - he might as well have been watching a statue - Gimli approached the elf and sat down beside him. At the least, it seemed right for him to have a chance to speak for himself.

  
Gimli gave a small bow before seating himself. “Gimli son of Gloin, of Erebor and Aglarond.”

  
“Maglor Fëanorian. But your companion has told you that, and more.”

  
“Do you dispute any of it?”

  
The elf gave a faint shudder. “No.”

  
Maglor seemed thin, even for an elf, and wearier than any elf Gimli had ever seen. “Have you eaten?”

  
“A few fish, on the journey north.”

  
“Did you eat yesterday?”

  
“No.”

  
Gimli left him briefly to rummage through a pack at the camp. Lembas, a final gift from Queen Arwen of Gondor before her departure. He brought back a wafer with a mug of water and handed it to the elf. Maglor ate it slowly and with difficulty, as though it were cram rather than the much more savoury bread of the elves.

While Maglor ate, Gimli pondered, and fragments of old lays and legends came together in his mind, forming connections and the beginnings of an idea for taking the measure of this uncommunicative stranger.

"Do you know the tale of the Quest of Erebor?"

Maglor shook his head, still chewing.

Gimli told the tale, not as it was told on days of festival or winter gatherings in Dale and Erebor - dwarves did not criticize their kings lightly, or to outsiders - but as it was told by dwarven elders to youths, when they were old enough to think and consider and understand. He told of Thorin's quest, for vengeance and for the treasure and kingdom of his forefathers; told of danger and daring and victory, of wrath and pride and dragon-sickness, of loss and of sorrow and renewal. And all the while he watched Maglor's expression closely.

He could read nothing clearly from the elf's face, though midway through the story he began tapping one finger lightly, as though keeping time with the rhythm of Gimli's account. They sat in silence for a time once the story was ended, Maglor staring abstractedly into the distance, until at last he said, "I envy your king." His weariness seemed only to increase. "He fought with valour, and died at peace and in honour. It is more than many achieve."

The elf reached for a mug of water, but his hand passed right through it. He tried again, and the same happened. On the third attempt, he managed to pick it up in a solid hand.

  
Gimli shivered. This was too wraith-like for his liking. “Are you some manner of ghost or spirit?”

  
“Not yet.” Gimli gave him a questioning glance. “Given enough time, the spirit wears through the body. I am nearly there. If I remain much longer in Middle-earth, form will fade away; I will hear and see, but not taste or smell or touch; live in the world, but not act upon it.”

Gimli could scarcely think of a worse fate than being alive but unable to touch, to shape, to craft, to work. He was glad Mahal had had the wisdom to grant his people mortality.

The question had drawn Maglor's attention back to the journey before them. "I am sure you have more right to the journey than me, but may I ask how you come to be travelling to Valinor? I had not heard that mortals were permitted."

"There have been a few exceptions. I am not one of them, and cannot say I have been invited, as such. But Legolas is my dearest friend; the sea calls him, and I will not leave him, not so long as I have life. And even if mortals die swifter in Farthest West, as some say, still it would be worth many years of life to see the Lady Galadriel again."

Maglor started at the name. "You know her?"

"Aye; and count it one of the greatest fortunes of my life that have had the chance. Fairest and kindest and wisest of all whom I have known, with a dwarf's love for beauty and craftsmanship. Greatness without pride, and power without corruption. She cast down Dol Guldur in the war, where the old king Thrain was murdered; I wish I could have been there to see it!"

"Did she!" For the first time a smile flickered around Maglor's mouth. "She would have enjoyed that. I am glad one of us had victories, in the end."

"You know her?"

"Cousin Altáriel? We were never close. It has been long ages since I last saw her. But there is something to be said for shared exile, of a sort; the two in Middle-earth, since the Great War. I had not known she had been permitted to return. That is hopeful, at least; though our cases cannot be said to be alike."

Gimli's head was swimming. "Cousin?"

"Well - after a fashion. You have heard of my father," - with a rueful look - "and his half-brother, Galadriel's father, is king of the Noldor in the Blessed Realm."

It was exceedingly strange to think of the Lady as the child of someone still living, much less as the child of a king rather than a ruler in her own right. Gimli forced his thoughts back to relevant questions.

"You swore an oath to regain the Jewels. That Jewel, by the old legends." He gestured at the greying horizon. "Do you still intend to pursue it, if you return to Valinor?"

"I cannot." The elf's eyes went to his blighted hand. "I could not hold it, if I did. Nor would I seek to. I have lost all right to it. Let those that hold it keep it." His voice sank below a whisper. "As weregild, at least."

*****

"You spoke to him?" Legolas asked incredulously.

"You never forbade me to do so."

"I told you that he was dangerous! I told you that he could not be trusted! I would think the implication was obvious!"

"Well, whatever he was in the past, I cannot think he is dangerous now. He is old, and he is tired, and and he is sorry."

"And you can understand him this well from one night's conversation! When you had not even heard of him before yesterday!"

"It is more than I would have understood otherwise. Why are you so afraid of me speaking to him? Or hearing and seeing some account of him other than your own? You did not mention that he was close kin to the Lady Galadriel!"

"If you think she would wish to see him again, you are mistaken. Very much the reverse. The people he murdered were her kinsfolk as well as mine. And if you would trust him over me so readily, that should give reason enough for why it is perilous to speak with him unwarily. Do you remember what Gandalf said to us of Saruman at Orthanc? Beware his voice. Not all power is in weapons."

"He is an elf like you, not a wizard - "

"He is not like me. In powers I am no more like him than the innkeeper in Bree is like Aragorn - or rather, like Ar-Pharazon! The elves of the First Age had strange powers, and yes, some of them were equal or greater in power than the wizards we have known. You will remember that Felagund himself fought alone against Sauron. This elf is known about all for the power of his music and his voice, and I have no wish to test it!"

"I assure you that I am not enchanted! It is not as though Saruman had any effect on me, beyond annoyance at his lies. Even if you were right about him, why would Maglor be any different?"

"Saruman was seeking to daunt us; and you are too brave and too stubborn for that. But he got to Fangorn in the end, and Fangorn is no fool; and convinced him not through threats or temptations, but through pity. The kinslayer knows he has nothing to offer you or threaten you with, but if he can play upon compassion and seek to drive you to distrust me - "

"He did not. He denied nothing that you said, and he did not mention Galadriel until I had done so. Is it so impossible that he is sincere?"

"You do not understand the Fëanorians. Even grief and regret can be deceptive. Of all Maglor's works, the most famed is the one he wrote of the First Kinslaying, a song of sorrow and regrets. It did not hold him back from slaying kin a second time, or a third, or making war against the Valar themselves. So his protestations of regret can mean little now. Whether he is dissembling, or whether he means them truly, they have never stopped him before."

"He is dying. Or what passes for it among elves. Can you ask me to go to the West and tell the Lady Galadriel that I abandoned her kinsman to die?"

"He has more than earned it."

"So had Gollum. So had Saruman, when Gandalf and the Lady Galadriel both offered him mercy. Legolas, you say you fear I am bewitched, but it is you who do not sound like yourself. You hate him so bitterly, you would leave him to die, for deed committed ten generations or more before my grandsires, in a past so distant it is scarcely memory?"

Legolas went taut, and his eyes flashed with rage. "The memories of mortals are short! His deeds live in the memory of my father, and my mother, and their fathers and mothers, who dwelt in Doriath when he attacked it and lost friends and family and home to his and his brothers' blades! No one is asking you to show pity for Azog! No one is asking you to invite Smaug into your family's home and last refuge!"

The words hit Gimli as a blow. He had to admit that he would never have spoken to another dwarf as he had spoken to Legolas. Dwarves had fought long and bitter wars over the death of their kings; not only against Smaug, but against the Orcs of Khazad-dûmand the cold-drakes of the north. And though Dúrin’s folk had never warred among themselves, other dwarven lineages had had long and bitter clan-wars over generations. If he had tried to tell another dwarf it was his duty save a bitter personal enemy, when there was blood between them, the conversation would quickly have come to ax-blows.

His opinion of the aged elf had not altered, and he had no wish to leave him behind; but it was not Gimli’s choice to make.

“You are right. I cannot understand what he has done to your people, and to your family. I have no quarrel with him, and so I have have not the right to pardon him. You are my friend; I trust your judgement and your wisdom; and the choice rightfully belongs to you. Whatever you choose, I will go with you.”

*****

Legolas spent the afternoon in thought.

What were his reasons for refusing passage to Maglor? Certainly, Legolas hated the elf, but that alone was merely a sentiment, not a reason to condemn another person to death.

_He is a murderer, and a threat, and his pretences to remorse cannot be trusted. He has killed, and repented; and killed, and repented; and killed, and repented; and so his repentance is meaningless. Should we bring danger and evil again into the one place in Eä free of it?_

Even if all that was true, Maglor was only one elf. Could he reasonably be said to pose a danger to the Powers? If they considered him a threat, was there anything to stop them taking him prisoner immediately upon arrival? Even among the elves, Galadriel by herself was at least his equal, and there were likely others in the Blessed Realm as powerful as she or more so.

That argument, then, was weak.

_He is barred from the Blessed Realm. He has chosen his own fate, and his own doom, and the scars on his hand proclaim it plainly. He cannot enter; and if we attempt to bring him, we may never find the path, or even be destroyed as the Númenoreans were when they defied the Powers’ judgements._

This argument was stronger. The judgement was not Legolas’, but that of the Valar, and one that Maglor had fully earned. Even the attempt to bring Gimli, a mortal and not a ring-bearer, depended on the Valars’ leniency; why try their patience further, for one to whom he owed nothing?

But did he know that Maglor was forbidden to return? Maglor felt he had been given a sign.

_Maglor has proved time and time again that he cannot not be trusted. He might easily be lying, or deceiving himself._

But if he was not...

If he was not, Legolas was choosing to judge where the Valar had granted mercy.

There was no way to know. Either choice could be in error: to pardon where they had judged, or to judge where they had pardoned.

Legolas was not Galadriel, or one of the Elves of old. He had not spoken with the Valar; he knew of them only through distant and hazy legends.

And through their emissary. Mithrandir, who had urged pity for Gollum, pity that had saved them all. Who had offered mercy to Saruman, a traitor and orc-breeder far worse than Maglor. There could be little doubt what Mithrandir would have chosen.

And if there was risk to the choice, to Legolas and Gimli themselves, what of that? To abandon him to death for the sake of guarding their own lives was fear masquerading as justice.

It was cowardice.

So the second argument, too, failed.

But were either of these the true reason for Legolas’ refusal?

_I am returning to Elvenhome, to all the generations of elves since the world began. I am returning to my kin, and perhaps my ancestors, and to all the people of Doriath. I cannot do so in the company of Maglor Fëanorian and a dwarf!_

Legolas would be living among the elves of Eressëa and Aman, for the rest of his life. If he did this, he would alienate them from the start, and destroy the chances of his people ever accepting Gimli. It could scarcely offend more if it had been calculated to do so; it could not appear but as a deliberate insult, to arrive with the greatest enemies of Doriath by his side.

They were not the same. They had nothing in common. There was no more reason for anyone to blame Gimli for the actions of other dwarves two Ages ago than there was to blame Legolas for the deeds of Fëanor. But the appearance of the thing could not help but have an effect; could not help but drawn connections; could not help but estrange him and Gimli alike from Legolas’ home and kin.

That was the true reason in his heart.

And acknowledged, it sounded ugly. Was he truly willing to condemn a person to death, or worse, merely to protect his own reputation? If he was too timid to bear disapproval or hostility for Maglor’s sake, would he also be too timid to bear it on Gimli’s account?

It was unacceptable. 

*****

In the evening, he spoke with Maglor.

“How can I have any assurance that you will not again bring violence to the Blessed Realm? If your oath still binds you, are you not a danger? And if it can be broken, what possible excuse could you give for not breaking it far sooner?”

Maglor answered the question as if he had been expecting it, but unsteadily, wavering from meeting Legolas’ eyes, to closing his own, to looking away at the sand or the sea. “We swore to pursue the Jewels, and we swore ourselves to the Darkness if we kept it not, and in keeping it we more than earned the Darkness. If I am condemned, I am condemned; more in the keeping than in the breaking; but I will pursue it no longer.”

“Why do you seek to return now, after so long? If you wished to seek pardon, surely there were others you could have asked, far earlier - at Mithlond, or at Imladris -”

Maglor gave a sharp shake of his head.

“You may as well call it cowardice, on both counts. I stayed away for long ages, for fear and for shame, of seeing any that I had known or letting them see what I had made of myself. I think I would have preferred death to mercy, but for fear, being in no hurry to meet the Darkness. And so I waited, and waited, and now I am out of time, and fear fading more than death or judgement. I cannot stay here, forever, to the end of the world, without any hope of asking mercy, without any chance of saying that I am sorry -”

“What do you expect, if you do return?”

“I do not know. I scarcely care. Let the Valar do with me as they will.”

It was difficult to disagree with Gimli’s reading of the old elf. More than anything, he seemed unutterably weary.

_He is not harmless. He has killed hundreds, by his sword; thousands, by his commands._

_And he is willing to answer for it._

And Legolas’ decision had, really, already been made.

“Come with us, then. We depart in the morning.”

**Author's Note:**

> There are two main reasons I wanted to write this.
> 
> First, I wanted Maglor to be able to return to Valinor, and I felt it important that he be held answerable for his actions by someone affected by them. It’s something he chose not to do during all his years of exile - he could have turned himself in, to Círdan, to Thranduil, to Celeborn and Galadriel, and he didn’t, and by this point there are very few people left who would qualify. Legolas didn’t directly experience the Kinslayings, but his father and grandfather were Doriathrin so there’s a definite connection nonetheless. I think that Gimli’s conclusion, that Gimli has no right to grant mercy to Maglor because he has no grievance against him, is correct; pardon needs to be given by the wronged, or by someone with authority to judge.
> 
> Second, Legolas is, of all the Fellowship, the one who never faces any real trials and temptations during The Lord of the Rings. (Even Gimli has to vie with his terror of the Paths of the Dead.) The Ring is no temptation to him - he has no desire for power or glory or greatness. Neither battle nor the spirits of the Dead nor the road to Mordor seem to daunt him. So I wanted to create a story where he has to face temptation and overcome it and do a certain amount of soul-searching. And, as is the case with many people who haven’t had to face great trials, the strongest temptation is towards condemnation of those who have faced temptation and have failed.
> 
> So I’ve tried to balance those two somewhat conflicting ideas, the legitimacy of judgement and the moral necessity of mercy.


End file.
